


Stripes

by GemmaRose



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Luffy just wants his nakama to be happy, Multi, Nakamaship, Platonic Soulmates, Reincarnation, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but it's onesided, the ships are sorta sidebar in the first chapter, there's a bit of lawlu in chapter 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where everyone has a mark to identify their soulmate, Luffy is born without one. But that’s okay, because the future Pirate King doesn’t have time for boring mushy romance. His nakama, however, are another story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the first prompt in [this](http://queen-gr.tumblr.com/post/129038386305) list of AUs.

Ace paused in the middle of bandaging Luffy’s arm, and pulled the younger boy’s wrist up to look closer.

“Hey, Sabo. Check this out.” he pulled harder, and the rubber idiot’s arm stretched into a slightly brighter patch. “His soulmate’s bald.”

Sabo snorted, and the red-brown stripe on his wrist looked even darker than usual against his fair skin in the moonlight. “Even bald people have hair somewhere.”

Ace made a face, and glanced at his own yellow stripe before going back to bandaging up Luffy. “Maybe your soulmate ate a devil fruit too.” he teased the smaller child. “Something even dumber than yours, that made all the hair on their body fall out.”

“Ewww.” Luffy made a face.

Ten years later, Luffy still didn’t care that his wrist was blank. He was going to be the Pirate King, so it wasn’t like he’d have a lot of time for dumb mushy romance stuff anyways.

\---

Luffy tilted his head and looked at the darker teen’s wrist. Zoro and Nami were making sure the oil spread properly, and that left the straw hatted captain with nothing much to do but take a look at Usopp’s soulmark. It was a pale yellow, way less vibrant than Ace’s or Zoro’s, and he frowned a little at the symbols on the inside of Usopp’s wrist. A fat plus sign and a teardrop.

“Kaya.” he said after a moment, looking up at the long nosed boy’s face. “She’s your soulmate, isn’t she?”

“What? No!” Usopp waved his hands and shook his head. “Kaya deserves-”

“Someone who can make her smile.” Luffy said quietly.

“Someone who’ll stay.” Usopp retorted, pulling his armband back down to cover the mark.

“But, her mark is black isn’t it?” Luffy frowned. He hadn’t gotten a very good look, but the girl’s wrist had been really dark.

“Lots of people have black hair. Even the butt-ler has black hair.”

Luffy sniggered at the joke, and gently touched the striped armband which hid his friend’s soulmark. “You should tell her before you go.”

“Who says I’m going anywhere?”

“You’re a pirate, aren’t you?”

Usopp didn’t reply to that, but instead stood up and moved down the slope to help Nami roll the barrel over to coat another inch of the rocky path. Luffy stayed seated, his legs crossed, and frowned at the story-teller’s back. Ace had gone on about how much soulmates mattered, how there was some level of destiny in their meeting, how they would always find each other again if they were separated. But if Usopp didn’t want to upset his soulmate, then that was his decision.

\---

Luffy opened the kitchen door quietly, and looked between the fridge and the sink, where Sanji and Zoro were washing the dishes from lunch. He stretched to grab the handle of the refrigerator, but before he could actually open the door and get at the food inside, Sanji had planted a foot on his arm.

“No.” The chef glared, wiping soap suds from his forearms. “I _will_ get Usopp to booby trap the door again if you keep this up.”

“But I’m hungryyy.” Luffy whined.

Zoro set another dish in the stack of clean ones, and turned around to give Luffy a skeptical look. “We ate half an hour ago.”

“Yeah.” Luffy nodded, but stopped with his mouth open when he noticed the marks on the wrists of his nakama. “Hey, you match!” he tried to pull his arm back to normal length, and wound up on the floor with his elbow still firmly under Sanji’s foot.

“What?” Sanji frowned, and looked Zoro up and down. “In what way does that make any sense?”

“Your arms.” Luffy managed to get his own free, and popped to his feet. Sanji was closer, so he grabbed Sanji’s right arm and pulled it up so the green stripe was right next to Zoro’s hair. And sure enough, there on the underside of his cook’s wrist were four diagonal stripes. Three which curved slightly, and one which was crossed with unsteady lines of green. Almost like three swords and one stitched up scar. “They match!” he grinned, grabbing Zoro’s and turning his swordsman’s arm over to reveal two curls of tan skin showing through the brilliant yellow stripe.

“You’re delusional.” Zoro scoffed, pulling his arm back and turning to pick his dish rag back up.

“My soulmate dyes her hair.” Sanji huffed, and Luffy let the cook pull away to keep washing dishes. “She’s a natural brunette.”

Luffy frowned, but didn’t say anything. Sanji and Zoro were both pretty stubborn, and he was way worse than Ace when it came to matchmaking. And according to Makino, that was really saying something.

A few days later, though, Usopp remarked offhandedly to Nami that their swordsman’s soulmark had filled in. Nami laughed, and asked the cook and swordsman over dinner if their first kiss had been any good. Sanji had been so shocked, Luffy actually managed to steal most of the blond’s meat before Zoro could spit out an answer. And then that had turned into the two of them arguing, and Usopp chanting “kiss, kiss, kiss!” and Luffy laughed as loud as Nami did when the bickering pair turned their anger on the sniper.

\---

Luffy’s eyes widened, and he grabbed Nami’s wrist excitedly.

“Luffy, what are you-”

“You match!” he crowed, cutting off her scolding tone. “Look!” he grabbed Vivi’s shoulder and pulled her close enough to hold his navigator’s wrist to the princess’s head. The blue matched, and the three triangles which had looked like mountains just last week were now quite clearly a crown. A princess crown.

Nami’s punch hurt, but not as bad as his grandpa’s Fist of Love, so he kept smiling as she resumed scolding him. Vivi had rolled up one of her sleeves to reveal a thick band of familiar blazing orange, and there on the underside of her wrist was the same swirly shape that decorated his navigator’s shoulder over the scar which had once been Arlong’s symbol. He stepped back as the two began talking, and headed up to his favourite seat. Everyone knew who their soulmates were, and all of his nakama were happy.

\---

When Ace kicked him off the railing and crouched in his place, the flaming wings which had marked his brother’s pulse since birth were gone. The man’s name was Marco, and that was all the information Luffy got before Ace took control of the conversation again.

\---

Robin’s wrist was decorated with a stripe of the brightest blue he’d ever seen, a star and several interlocking gears emblazoned on the inside of her wrist and on the wrist of every right hand she bloomed. Weeks after she joined, on the grassy green deck of their new ship, Luffy tugged on his new shipwright’s arm and called his archaeologist over to compare colours. Franky's **super** cool robot arms didn’t have a mark, but apparently before he became a cyborg there had been a black stripe around his wrist with a single perfect cherry blossom over the veins. About a week later, Chopper and Brook marveled at how natural the solid black stripe looked on their cyborg’s arm.

\---

Two years and several months after the battle of Marineford, Luffy sat in his special seat on the figurehead of his ship and leaned forward into the wind. His hat lifted slightly, and as he pushed it back down onto his head he noticed the mark which had appeared on his wrist. About an inch wide and split into ten narrow bands of colour, each one distinct and as familiar as breathing. And right there, sitting neatly in the middle of it all, a pair of crossed bones under a wide-brimmed crown. He’d felt the symbol there ever since childhood, invisible and nearly intangible but always ever so slightly smoother than the surrounding skin. He grinned, and settled back against Sunny’s mane.

His nakama had never been destined to sail with him, but here they were anyways. They’d chosen to follow him all the way here, to fight at his side as he challenged the Marine Admirals and the Yonku and the World Government itself. He’d _chosen_ them to be his, and they’d accepted. He wrapped his left hand around the mark and closed his eyes, letting the wind whip past him. He loved his nakama with all his heart, and maybe it wasn’t really that bad having some sort of cosmic proof that they’d forged their destinies into one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's enough interest, I may write another chapter with the first kisses of the various soulmates mentioned.
> 
> Edit: Since it seems to have caused some confusion, I'll put it plainly here. Luffy has ten stripes because waaay back in chapter one he said he was going to gather ten people for his crew. We may still be waiting on the final two (I have my fingers crossed for more girls) but since the mark only appears after he's become the Pirate King, all ten of his nakama are represented.


	2. First Kisses

**Kaya/Usopp**

“Usopp, you’re leaving?”

He set down his bag, and turned to face her. “Yes.” he nodded. “I was a bit hesitant, but...” he glanced at his ship, so small next to the one Kaya was giving to Luffy’s crew. “I’ve finally decided.” decided to leave her like his dad had left his mom, decided not to make her spend her life waiting for a black flag on the horizon.

A hundred pleas and confessions hovered on his tongue. I love you, you’re my other half, I’ll stay here the rest of my days if you just asked. But he swallowed those words, and instead what came out was “Don’t stop me.”

“I won’t, because I understand, but everyone will miss you.” Kaya smiled as she said that, soft and sweet, and the way she clasped her hands in front of herself made the sleeves of her jacket hitch up ever so slightly to reveal the band of black around her wrist.

“When I come back, I’ll tell you about some _real_ adventures.” he promised, faking a wide smile. He was a pirate, it wasn’t reasonable for anyone to expect him to return here for anything less than his soulmate. And if she didn’t know...

“Okay.” she took a few steps forward, until she was almost within arm’s reach. “I’ll wait for you.”

Usopp’s jaw dropped, and he gripped his armband where it covered his soulmark. She would wait for him? Kaya, beautiful kind _wonderful_ Kaya, who deserved a soulmate so much better than him, was willing to hang her whole life on the promise of a lying pirate.

“I love you.” he breathed, closing the space between them and pressing a quick, chaste kiss to her lips. Mary made a distressed noise, and when he stepped back Usopp felt his armband being slid up.

He let Kaya turn his hand over, exposing the symbols which were already beginning to grow fainter, paler against his dark skin. She turned her own wrist up, and his heart fairly skipped a beat at the sight of a fading target in the center of her black band.

“Me too.” she smiled, brighter than he’d ever seen, and when she pulled him into a hug he hugged her back tight. No matter how far he strayed in search of adventure, no matter how far he had to go to truly become a brave warrior of the sea, he would always return to here. No, he would always return to her.

“I’ll come back.” he said when she pulled away, placing his hands on her shoulders. “And that’s an Usopp Promise.”

\-----

**Roronoa Zoro/Sanji**

“My soulmate dyes her hair.” Sanji pulled his arm out of Luffy’s grip and picked up the sodden dishrag again. “She’s a natural brunette.”

Luffy, somewhat surprisingly, left the kitchen without another word. Sanji plunged his hands back into the hot water, and started scrubbing again. When everything was clean and dry and put away, he removed the gunk trap from the drain and emptied it into the bucket where bait scraps went.

“Why did you lie to him?”

Sanji shrugged, and set the gunk trap back in place. “Habit, mostly.”

“Habit.” Zoro repeated incredulously.

“Wow, part marimo part parrot.” Sanji snapped back, crossing his arms. “Yes, habit. Customers are nosy, and nobody ever believes me when I say my soulmate has naturally green hair.” he rolled down his sleeves, covering the mark again. “Honestly, I didn’t fully believe it myself until I saw you.”

“So, we’re soulmates.” Zoro leaned against the counter next to him, and Sanji shrugged again.

“I’ve got three swords and a scar, you’ve got two curls. It’s pretty solid.”

“And you’re fine with this?” Zoro raised an eyebrow.

“Well it’s not like all soulmates are romantic.” Sanji pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “All the mark really means is we’re destined to spend our lives together.”

“Sounds pretty damn romantic to me.” Zoro frowned.

“Then look at it this way.” Sanji pulled his cigarette from between his teeth, and exhaled a stream of smoke. “These marks are proof that we’ll be sailing with Luffy until he runs us into some fight we can’t win and we all die.”

“Cheery.” Zoro snorted.

“Like it or not, marimo, we’re stuck with each other for the rest of the foreseeable future.” he put his cigarette back to his lips, and inhaled more smoke.

“Can I kiss you anyways?”

Sanji nearly choked on nothing, and wound up coughing smoke in a rather undignified way. “What?” he croaked when the fit had mostly passed.

“Just to clear the marks and shit.” Zoro indicated the twin curls on his wrist, and Sanji sucked in more smoke between his teeth before exhaling it slowly.

“Fine, but just once.” he lowered his cigarette, and Zoro leaned in for a quick kiss. Too quick, actually. Their noses bumped together almost painfully, and then the swordsman’s mouth slammed into his hard enough to make their teeth knock together.

Zoro pulled away just as fast, and Sanji reached up to wipe his mouth as the marimo pressed on his split lip. His wrist was tingling slightly, the symbols in his green soulmark vanishing, and Sanji lowered his hand to cross his arms.

“We’re not doing that again.”

“Yeah, no.” Zoro shook his head.

\-----

**Nami/Nefertari Vivi**

“I was actually a little bit worried.” Vivi ran her thumb over the mark on the underside of her wrist. “I’d never heard of an indicator changing so completely overnight.”

Nami raised a hand to rub at her tattoo, but said nothing. She’d never thought about her soulmate that much, at least not since Bellemere died. And now here she was, less than a month out from under Arlong’s thumb and sitting next to her soulmate in the room they shared. And her soulmate, on top of being damn beautiful, was a _princess_? “It’s sorta surreal.” she chuckled, lowering her hand to look at the pale mark over her pulse.

“It really is.” Vivi agreed, not looking up.

“You won’t be staying with us though, once we’ve saved your country.” it was something which hadn’t been spoken, but Nami knew it to be true. Vivi loved them, loved this ship and the sea and all their nakama, but she wouldn’t be able to choose them over her duty to her country. That much was painfully clear.

“I want to.” Vivi’s voice wobbled slightly, and Nami put an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “I really want to.”

“Well, let’s worry about that later.” Nami pulled Vivi closer, so their bodies were pressed flush from hip to chest, and the princess turned to return the hug. “Do you want to make this work?”

“More than anything.” Vivi mumbled into her shoulder.

“Then we’ll make it work.” Nami pulled away slightly, and Vivi lifted her head. “Can I kiss you?”

“You may.” Vivi smiled, and Nami leaned in. Her wrist tingled slightly, but that was far from the front of her mind. Vivi’s lips were soft, her hands warm and strong in the navigator’s own, and it was like the rest of the world melted away.

“That was...” Nami mumbled when they separated a few long seconds later, an adequate adjective escaping her.

“Nice.” Vivi’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and she had never looked more beautiful.

“Yeah. Nice.” Nami’s face felt hot, and she knew she was probably bright red but she didn’t really care. “We should do that again, sometime.” she tried to pull her hands back, to regain her own space, but Vivi only held on tighter.

“I-”

“Later.” Nami cut her off, twisting her hands to free them. “I’ve got a ship to steer.” she stood, straightened her skirt, and gave Vivi a soft smile. The princess nodded once, and stood to hook her arm through Nami’s.

“I intend to hold you to that, miss navigator.”

\-----

**Franky/Nico Robin**

Robin held very carefully still as Franky traced the gears on her wrist. They were on watch tonight, and the look Usopp had given them was positively wistful. Nami and Sanji, in contrast, had given them looks of mixed knowing and jealousy. Now Robin sat silently as Franky’s deceptively delicate hands traced around her soulmark, the cyborg quite visibly captivated by her gears and star.

“I thought about putting the mark on my new arm.” he said quietly “But it didn’t seem right.”

“Was it really a flower?”

“A sakura blossom.” Franky nodded. “Iceberg was so jealous.” he chuckled, and Robin smiled.

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

“Look, soulmarks are really vague.” Franky frowned slightly. “If you want to wait and see if your mark is for someone else..."

“No, I-” Robin looked down at her hands, at the familiar stripe of bright brilliant blue which encircled her wrist. “I would like, to know.”

“Well, you’re welcome to kiss me whenever.” Franky grinned.

“I’ll think about it.” Robin smiled back serenely, and stood.

\---

Five days later, she pulled him outside into the wreck of Moriah’s courtyard and he leaned down when she tugged on the lapels of his shirt. She kissed him hard, conveying a thousand unspoken anxieties in a few endless seconds. He gripped her waist tight, and rested their foreheads together when she pulled away. They were alive, against all odds, and he wondered if sailing with Luffy was always like this. He felt a phantom tingle from his wrist, and Robin released his lapel to turn her indicators skyward. They were fading rapidly, and in seconds both star and gears had faded.

“You’re pretty good at that.” he chuckled quietly, not pulling her close for another kiss but not releasing her either.

“It’s amazing how easy some pirates are to bribe.” she smiled back, dry and sharp as a hidden blade.

“Well then, consider me bought in full.” he moved a hand up to cup her cheek, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

That evening, he invited her down to his workshop and she let him compare inks to her hair until he got the mixture just right. Not too brown, not too blue, just the slightest tinge of purple. Her hands were steady as she painted the stripe on his wrist, the dye sinking in and staining his synthetic skin.

\-----

**Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace**

Ace couldn’t really help staring a little when he first met Marco. The infamous Phoenix had bands of colour covering his right arm all the way up to the shoulder, and on the left there were stripes reaching almost to his elbow.

“I thought the rumours were exaggerating.” he said after a moment, looking up to meet the man’s eyes. “You actually are immortal.”

The phoenix had only nodded, and as he walked away Ace looked down at the band of bright yellow which wrapped around his wrist. It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to make sense of what the symbol over his pulse point was, but now he almost wished he’d never figured it out. What sort of cruel god had decided to make his soulmate the First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates? He’d been prepared to accept his soulmark never filling in, entirely ready to live his life with his other half never loving him, but the idea of being actively despised by that man was a bit painful. Because of course Marco would hate him once he achieved his goal and killed Whitebeard.

\---

Months later, it was Marco who took the seastone cuff from his wrist after the tattoo on his back was finished and bandaged. Ace didn’t complain as the phoenix helped him out onto the deck, and as the effects of the cuff began to fade he looked down at his crewmate’s arms. It seemed there was every colour of the rainbow there, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. What stood out was how few of the grey and white marks were filled in. There was one low on the phoenix’s right forearm which was solid blue-grey, and another just over his right elbow which was pure white, but the rest of the pale marks bore symbols. Just the two shapes actually, repeated over and over.

“They’re all the same, yoi.”

Ace startled a little, and grinned sheepishly.

“Pirates, all of them.” Marco ran a hand down his arm, thumb trailing over the symbols without missing a single one.

Ace made a sympathetic sound, and rubbed at his own band of brilliant yellow. It must suck, to outlive your soulmate so many times. “I guess you wouldn’t be interested this time, then?” he turned his wrist so Marco could see his symbol, and the blond sighed.

“You’re a bit young for me.”

Ace snorted, and his back twinged but he smiled regardless. “Well, I can live with that.”

\---

It wasn’t until nearly a year later that Marco pulled him aside after a battle with some unusually competent marines and pressed him against the wall with hungry desperate kisses. Ace’s wrist burned, and he grabbed the phoenix by the hair to keep him close.

“I can’t lose you.” Marco breathed when the pulled apart, blue flames flickering in his ancient eyes. “Not yet.”

“Good, because I don’t plan on dying any time soon.” Ace tightened his grip on Marco’s hair, and pulled his soulmate in for another kiss.

\---

Fourteen months later, Marco wrapped bandages tight around the burning stripe of skin just above Ace’s mark. Someday he would be ready to acknowledge his soulmate’s latest reincarnation, but for the moment he needed time to grieve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious, the two marks on Marco's arms are crossed bones and flames. The crossed bones are visible on all of them, the flames only on about half.


	3. Realizations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter exists thanks to Moon Child, Kei

“Where’s your mark?” Nami asked, leaning over the railing of her stolen ship and looking down at Luffy.

“Huh?” he leaned back to look up at her, putting a hand on his hat to keep it from falling off his head.

“Your soulmark. I don’t see it.” she frowned. She’d never seen someone without a band of colour on their wrist before, and it was kinda unnerving her.

“Yeah, I was wondering that too.” Zoro chipped in, turning his wrist so his indicators were visible. “Is it someplace weird?”

“Nah.” Luffy shook his head. “Never had one.”

Nami blinked a few times, then rubbed at her ear with the heel of her palm. “You what?”

“Never had one.” Luffy shrugged. “Don’t know why, don’t care.”

“Huh.” Zoro said, leaning back against the mast of Luffy’s tiny boat.

“Huh.” Nami echoed, looking down at the stripe of brilliant blue on her own wrist.

\-----

“Does Luffy really not have a soulmark?” Usopp asked her as they watched oil drip down the slope.

Nami shrugged, and gave the barrel a nudge to start covering the next inch or so. “I’ve only known him for a few days.”

“Well that’s more than me.” the long-nosed liar huffed.

“He said he doesn’t care.” Nami said, a frown working its way onto her face.

“No.” Usopp gasped, his tone absolutely scandalized, or maybe disbelieving but Nami prefered the idea that he was scandalized.

“I know!” she groaned, slumping over the barrel slightly. “He must have his soulmark somewhere weird and not like talking about it.”

“Idunno.” Usopp looked over his shoulder at the straw hatted idiot under a nearby tree. “He doesn’t seem like he gets embarrassed about much.”

“What if it’s somewhere _really_ weird.” Nami grinned. “Or the symbol is something really bad?” she drew a quick breath, and a giggle slipped out as a possibility flashed through her head.

“What?”

“What if his soulmate is a Marine?”

Usopp spluttered with laughter, and they fired increasingly improbable possibilities back and forth in hushed tones as they finished rolling the barrel.

\-----

“Nami!” Sanji beamed. “How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s fine.” she waved her hand dismissively, and accepted the drink Sanji offered. “I can’t believe you actually joined.”

“Luffy’s pretty… uniquely persuasive.” the blond said with a wry smile. “And it’s not like I could’ve accomplished my goals just staying at that shitty restaurant for the rest of my life.”

Nami hid a smile in her drink. Luffy certainly seemed to have a knack for swaying people to join his crew. Gods knew she’d wanted to join them by the time they reached Gecko Island.

“You’ve been on the crew for a few weeks, right?”

 

“Something like that. Why?”

Sanji looked out into the crowd, where Luffy and Usopp were doing some absolutely stupid dance involving chopsticks and empty plates. “Does he really not have a soulmark?”

Nami smirked, and took another sip of her drink. “Well, he says he doesn’t, but Usopp and I have some theories.”

“Really?” Sanji didn’t hide the smile on his face, dopey and saccharine.

“They’re all pretty silly, honestly.” she waved her hand dismissively. “Hairless soulmate, Marine soulmate, stuff like that.”

“Don’t be like that, Nami. Any theories you come up with are perfectly wonderful for sure!”

She snorted, and took a long swig of her drink. “You’re a weirdo.”

“If you say so <3”

\-----

“Um, Nami?”

Nami looked over at the latest addition to their little crew, and her heart jumped in her chest again. A smile slipped across her face, and she patted the railing next to where she was leaning. Her soulmate came to lean next to her, looking out across the waves under a mostly cloudy sky. Her soulmate, the princess. That would take some getting used to. “What is it, Vivi?”

“Uh, it’s about Luffy.” she said after a moment.

Nami sighed, and let her head drop. This was going to end up being her job, wasn’t it. Telling new members of their nakama about the captain’s bizarre lack of a soulmark. “His soulmark?”

“Yeah.” Vivi nodded. Nami shrugged, and kept her eyes fixed on the waves.

“Far as any of us can tell, he doesn’t have one.”

“Like, at all?”

“None at all.” Nami sighed. “When I asked he said he doesn’t even care, Luffy can’t lie for shit so he must’ve meant it.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine not having this.” Vivi wrapped a hand over her soulmark and rubbed the brilliant orange skin.

“Same.” Nami ran a thumb over the stripe of bright blue which had decorated her wrist since birth. “I might never have kissed you, otherwise.”

“And that would’ve been a damn shame.” Vivi chuckled, leaning in to press her lips to Nami’s cheek.

“Oh, come on.” Nami grinned, turning to face her soulmate and looping her arms behind the small of Vivi’s back. “I know you can do better than that.”

“Is that a challenge?” Vivi whispered, leaning in until their lips almost touched.

“If you want it to be.”

\-----

“Hey, Chopper.”

The little reindeer looked up from his game of cards with Usopp and Luffy, and Nami waved him over. “Yeah?”

“Is there anything weird about Luffy’s skin, aside from the fact that it’s rubber?”she asked, shifting the fishing rod in her hands so she wouldn’t lose it to the ocean if she got a bite while talking to their doctor.

“Uh, not that I noticed, no.” he said with a small frown. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” she waved her hand dismissively. “Just curious. You can go back to your game.”

\-----

“The captain is quite an oddity, isn’t he?”

Nami startled, and nearly dripped ink on her half-finished map of Alabasta. “Robin!” she lowered her pen, a smile crossing her face before she sighed and looked at her desk. “Oddity is one word for it.”

“I’ve never seen someone without a soulmark before.” the older woman mused, sounding for all the world like she was talking about something which had no immediate bearing on their lives.

“Me neither, but Luffy’s-” she drew a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. “He’s Luffy.”

“That he is.” Robin smiled, like there was some joke only she understood, and Nami went back to working on her map as their newest crewmate picked up a book and settled in to start reading.

\-----

“Zoro-bro told me to ask you about Luffy’s wrists?” Franky said, and Nami would’ve dumped her drink on him but Sanji had evidently rubbed off on her a bit during their months of sailing together because she just glared at the cyborg shipwright.

“Right now?” she asked pointedly, jerking her head to indicate the party going on around them.

“Well...”

Nami sighed, and slammed the rest of her drink so she could set the cup down and not worry about someone else snagging it. Of course it was her actual job now, explainer of Luffy’s weirdness. “I’m gonna punch that idiot swordsman.” she grumbled.

“So, not now?”

“Luffy doesn’t have a soulmark, and that’s that.” she huffed, crossing her arms. “Got a problem with it?” her tone was sharper than she’d intended, and Nami almost wished she had her ClimaTact on hand.

“Nah.” Franky offered an easy smile. “Just curious.” he lifted his right hand and tapped his wrist, which was bare of an sort of mark. “Never painted mine back on, and I wondered if your captain’d had his cut out or something.”

“Huh.” Nami blinked a few times, then shrugged. “You’d have to ask Chopper, but I think he’s never had a soulmark. He’s Luffy, he’s weird like that.”

\-----

“What an odd soulmate you must have.”

Nami lifted her head from updating the logbook at Brook’s words, and turned to look at their new musician where he was examining Luffy’s wrists.

“I don’t.” Luffy said, blunt as ever.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t have a soulmate. Don’t need one, either.” Luffy ginned. “I’ve got my nakama and my dream. Don’t need anything else.”

“Well, then.” Brook’s skull seemed to grin, despite the fact that all his teeth were already showing, and he picked up his violin from the deck. “A song, for new adventures!”

Nami smiled, and made a note in the margins that Brook seemed to understand Luffy’s weirdness just fine.

\-----

Nami almost sighed when she saw Trafalgar Law’s eyes fix on Luffy’s blank wrists over breakfast. Their ally might draw his own conclusions, but at this point it was basically her second job on the ship to fill people in about her captain’s odd lack of a soulmate and she didn’t want him to think something wrong when she could set him straight so easily.

“Hey, Torao.” she called after the table had been cleared and Luffy was out on deck again pestering Caesar Clown with Usopp. The Surgeon of Death turned, and she gestured for him to follow her up into the kitchen-top garden.

“What is it, Nami-ya?” he asked, standing awkwardly on the grass.

“You were looking at Luffy’s wrists all through breakfast.” she said bluntly. “Why?”

Trafalgar looked down, and it seemed to be an unconscious action when he gripped his right wrist. An unconscious action, but a very familiar one. Nami’s eyes widened, and she gripped her own soulmark. “No.”

Trafalgar pushed his sleeves up, coat and shirt both, and Nami could clearly see the jolly roger emblazoned on the underside of his wrist in the middle of a jet black stripe. Right next to the profile of a very familiar hat.

“Damn.” she breathed. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“I got a good look after Marineford, but he was covered in so much blood...”

Nami sucked in a breath between her teeth, and stamped down the irrational anger which threatened to spill out in the form of some cutting remark about Trafalgar’s worthiness of dating her captain. “Thank you.” she said instead, keeping her voice low and quiet. “We couldn’t be there for him, but-” she exhaled slowly, and gave Trafalgar a smile. “Thank you, for making sure he could come back to us.”

“What sort of doctor would I be if I let my own soulmate die?”

And there it was again, the thing that had lead them to this conversation in the first place. “Luffy doesn’t have a soulmate.” Nami said, holding her tongue on **‘** and if he did, we wouldn’t let it be someone like you **’**. It was the first time she’d said it so bluntly, and the words seemed to make Trafalgar curl in on himself ever so slightly.

“Of course.”

Nami opened her mouth, but none of the words which came to mind seemed right so she settled for clapping a hand on Trafalgar’s shoulder as she passed on her way to the hatch into the kitchen. Soulmark be damned, if Trafalgar Law wanted to court Luffy he’d have to go through the entire Straw Hat crew to do it.

\-----

Nami warded off Luffy’s reaching hand automatically, and had the targeted sausage link halfway to her mouth before the discrepancy registered. “Luffy, what happened to your wrist?” she asked, and the table fell silent as every eye turned to their captain, now sporting a multi-coloured band around his right wrist.

“Huh?” Luffy mumbled through a mouthful of meat, looking at his wrist, at what could only be a soulmark but couldn’t be because Luffy didn’t _have_ a soulmark.

“Whoa, that’s a lot of colours!” Usopp exclaimed.

Luffy swallowed his food, and smiled wider than was physically possible for non-rubber faces. “One for each of you!” he held up his hand, displaying the symbol on the underside of his wrist, and Nami sighed as Sanji and Zoro started bickering about what it meant that their bands of colour on Luffy’s wrist were right next to each other.

If her captain had been in possession of any sort of artistic capability she would’ve suspected him of drawing it on himself, but Luffy could barely draw one straight line let alone ten with a crowned Jolly Roger in the middle. Robin patted her on the shoulder with a disembodied arm, the wrist sporting a solid band of Franky’s near-neon blue, and Nami gave her bunkmate a small smile.

If anyone could have ten soulmates, of course it’d be Luffy. He was the Pirate King, not even the universe itself could tell him what to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Since it seems to have been a cause of much confusion, I'll explain it here. Luffy's ten stripes are for the ten nakama he will eventually have. In chapter one he said he would have ten people on his crew, and since his soulmark doesn't appear until _after_ he becomes Pirate King, they're all with him by that time.
> 
>  **Works inspired by this one:** [Dog Vision](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4816058) by [RyuichiSakuma](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuichiSakuma/pseuds/RyuichiSakuma).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dog Vision](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816058) by [RyuichiSakuma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuichiSakuma/pseuds/RyuichiSakuma)




End file.
